with the most far-out setting of a given text—should certainly not be discounted as a force driving radical
experimentation.
EX. 17-18B Claudio Monteverdi, A un giro sol, mm. 43–55What proved so stimulating to the musical imagination was the new “affective” style in which the poet
cast his “pathetic” monologues, that is, the monologues depicting the affetti or sentiments of suffering
lovers, expressed not only in words but in sighs and tearful ejaculations like ohimè! (“oh me oh my”) or
ahi lasso! (“ah, weary me,” whence “alas”)—the very phrase to which Monteverdi’s main
“transgression” (Ex. 17-19) was set. Thus composers were encouraged to develop an “affective” style of
their own, analogizing the one that was being developed (also to the consternation of classicists) in
literature. The remarkable thing is the way the new musical style came into its own just as—or even
because—the poetry was becoming less “articulate” in its eloquence, more given over to elemental
plaintive sounds, rhetorical “music.” The two arts seemed to be converging, meeting in the middle; each
giving something up (stylistic “perfection,” exalted diction), each gaining something else (heightened
expressivity). Out of that nexus a momentous style transformation was bound to occur.
EX. 17-19 Claudio Monteverdi, Cruda Amarilli, mm. 1–14, encompassing the first of Artusi’s “spots”